Little Samuel, who was now five, spent most of his time watch-
ing his father and the men at their work. He was given an old
blunt tool to play with, and was nimble enough with his fingers,
for all his lack of years.

Sister Mary had already passed her second birthday, and
toddled about after her mother, with fat unsteady legs.

Janet blessed them for the lack of trouble they gave her, she
feeling giddy and ill at times now, with another baby on the way.
Both her sisters had married that year, and three weeks after the
wedding of the youngest, old Mrs. Coombe had died.

Janet said little to Thomas about her health. He was proud at
the thought of another addition to his family, but his work at the
yard prevented him from looking after his wife, and he was never
in the house, except for his evening meal, and then straight to bed
to sleep like a log.

Never before, either with Samuel or with Mary, had Janet felt
so weak and tired in the early months. She was more concerned
for the child than herself, and was afraid it would be born prema-
turely and die. The feeling of peace and security she had known
before the birth of the two other children was not with her this
time.

Her old wild, restless longings rose within her, and she wanted
only to leave the house and her family, and take herself away into
some silent far-distant place.

She no longer sat in the rocking-chair, her work in her hands,
content with the peace and warmth of her home, she would
wander restlessly about the house, miserable at her weak state.

When the summer came, and the days were warm and long,
Janet would leave the house and taking the children with her,
climb laboriously to the top of the high cliffs above Plyn, and sit
there for hours, watching the sea.

She longed for freedom as she had never longed for it; a throb
of intense pain shook her being when she saw a ship leave the
harbour of Plyn, her sails spread to the wind, and move away like
a silent phantom across the face of the sea. Something tore at her
heart to be gone too.

As the months slowly passed this feeling became stronger and
more vital, not a day passed when Janet did not find some
moment or other for making her way to the cliffs, and turning
her head to the wind and listening to the sound of the sea. More
than ever in her life she felt the urge and the desire to use her
strength and to move swiftly, then she looked at her ugly mis-
shapen body and bowed her head in her hands for shame that she
had been born a woman.

4*